Twelve dormant authorisations costing EUR 0.9m a year to maintain

A generics manufacturer needed liquidity and held 34 national marketing authorisations across nine molecules. Twelve had not been marketed for years but still had to be maintained: variations, periodic safety reports, fees. Roughly EUR 0.9m a year for authorisations generating no revenue at all. An open sale process would have signalled to the market that the company needed cash.

We valued the portfolio by remaining term, market size in each country and competitive density, then bundled the twelve dormant authorisations into a single package — individually they would have been close to unsellable. We approached seven acquirers from our own network directly, with no particulars. Five entered the data room, three bid. We saw the regulatory transfer of the authorisations through in four countries.

The sub-portfolio sold for EUR 18.9m — around EUR 1.6m per authorisation. Ongoing maintenance costs fell by EUR 0.9m a year. Seven months passed between the first conversation and closing. The remaining 22 authorisations behind the marketed core business were untouched.